People of Miles reject toxic dump

People of Miles reject toxic dump

By Bill Mason

BRISBANE — The Murilla Shire Council and the people of Miles would have nothing to do with the Gurulmundi toxic waste dump, People Against Toxic and Chemical Hazards spokesperson David Hinds said on October 21.

He was commenting on the Goss government's decision on October 19 to go ahead with the dump at Gurulmundi, a railway siding 30 km north of Miles, a town of about 1500 people in a grain and grazing area on the Darling Downs. The plan is to transport the waste from the Willawong site near Brisbane.

Cabinet adopted a final Impact Assessment Study report which stated that the land was suitable for the safe disposal of solid, treated hazardous waste.

David Hinds said the dump decision was political in that it was being sited in a National Party seat which the Labor government knew it would never win.

"We all knew six months ago that would get the dump here", Hinds said. "We haven't got much political pull up here, but we won't give up on this."

Hinds said he would like to see emergency services minister Mackenroth honour his promise to the people of Miles that "if they don't want the dump they won't get it.

"He said that if the dump didn't meet the highest health and environmental standards and wasn't economically feasible, then it would go somewhere else.

"It hasn't me those standards, so it should go somewhere else", Hinds said.

From GLW issue 33